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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Whistleblower: Trump Tried To Get Ukraine To Interfere In Election, And White House Tried To Cover It Up; Sources: Trump Compares Whistleblower's Sources To "Spies", Makes Reference To Executions Like The Old Days. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired September 26, 2019 - 16:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:30:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And he didn't know what else to do. What did you think of that?

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE UNDER OBAMA: Well, first, I thought Joe Maguire did a masterful job in a very, very difficult circumstance. And he has been acting DNI for, what, six weeks? And he was in a very tough place starting -- and there are a couple of reasons for this. One is the ambiguity of the law itself. And the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act which is silent, not surprisingly, on this subject.

What happens when the objective of the complaint is suppressing the United States? It doesn't treat that. So I think -- I'm sure he had a lot of discussions with his general counsel and I think he did the correct thing institutionally, which is to consult, or perhaps his general counsel did, with the White House Counsel's Office and/or the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, which is the senior level authority, the senior voice for legal issues in the executive branch. That was the right thing to do institutionally.

Politically, was it the right thing to do, to consult with the target of the complaint? And I hope and I'm sure he did, have a discussion about the pros and cons of doing that with his general counsel. Having said that, like many other controversial decisions that figures of late have made like Jim Comey and now Joe Maguire, I think he did it for absolutely what he thought with the right reasons.

He is trying to thread a very tight needle there, very small needle between complying with the law, which he clearly understands and supports and at the same time not running too far afoul of the White House. So I think that's the line he was trying to traverse.

TAPPER: General Clapper, always good to see you. Thank you so much for being here.

Coming up next, Rudy Giuliani just said that he will be the hero when all of this is over. Yes, he really said that. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:35:22] TAPPER: The President stunned his own staffers this morning when in front of a room of career foreign service officers, he said he wants to know who in his administration gave information to the whistleblower, he called those people, quote, close to a spy, according to two sources in the room. And to CNN's Pamela Brown reports for us now, the President is clearly fuming over how everything is going down.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump punching back today after his Acting Intelligence Director Joseph Maguire testified before the House Intel Committee.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just watch a little bit of this on television. It's a disgrace to our country. It's another witch hunt. Here we go again.

BROWN (voice-over): The President is upset the complaint ever came to be, since the whistleblower never actually heard the call. "The New York Times" and "L.A. Times" both reporting that in a meeting with U.S. United Nations staff this morning, the President attacked the whistleblower's sources about Trump's phone call with the new Ukrainian President

TRUMP: Who was the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that's close to a spy. Do you know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.

What these guys are doing, Democrats are doing to this country is a disgrace and it shouldn't be allowed. There should be a way of stopping it.

BROWN (voice-over): The President also attacked Democrats for holding the hearing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you for your support.

BROWN (voice-over): Despite the Intelligence Community Inspector General concluding the whistleblower's complaint to be credible.

TRUMP: They can't do any work. They're frozen. The Democrats are going to lose the election. They know it. That's why they're doing it. And it should never be allowed, what's happened to this president.

BROWN (voice-over): And CNN has learned Trump's 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has recently had conversations with multiple White House officials about joining the administration in a crisis management role as part of a larger impeachment defense team. This comes just a week after Lewandowski admitted to Congress he doesn't have to be honest with the media.

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I have no obligation to have a candid conversation with the media whatsoever. BROWN (voice-over): The discussions with Lewandowski reflect growing concern within the White House that the President lacks a clear strategy to manage the impeachment inquiry. Multiple allies have suggested creating a team solely committed to handling the matter with other aides arguing White House officials already in place are more than prepared to combat House Democrats.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And here at the White House, the President appears to be consumed with talk of impeachment amid the whistleblower complaint fallout, targeting the whistleblower on Twitter by saying he or she has a known bias. Today, Acting DNI said the whistleblower acted in good faith and also that he didn't know the identity of the whistleblower. And, Jake, there's no evidence that the President knows the identity either even though he continues to launch attacks. Jake?

TAPPER: All right, Pamela Brown, thanks so much.

Let's chew overall of this. Ron, President Trump saying about so- called spies although it's not a spy to cooperate with the whistleblower, but put that aside for a second. We used to handle it a little differently than we do now. That to me sounds like he's talking about when they used to executive spies.

RON BROWNSTEIN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: You know, what the President said both in private and public today, to me, was just more proof that when all you have is a hammer, everything, even this, looks like a nail. Because the President's go-to response to any political challenge is to basically say culture elites and the deep state are going after me because they want to silence you, my voters.

And that will be what we'll hear probably by tomorrow and by the next day and that will be the message. So this is not about the substance, this is about elites who look down on you, trying to take me out because I am defending you.

And the problem I think he has is that where that might be effective theoretically, in a Democratic Caucus is among the 31 Democrats in Trump districts, many of whom looking at the substance of this, became leaders. Really they are the ones who triggered the movement toward impeachment.

[16:40:14]

And he has a substantive problem here that I think a lot of voters are going to look at and be uneasy with. That is -- That you can't answer solely by kind of using the same hammer to bang in the same nail for his course of orders.

TAPPER: And it does seem to be that one of the problems and liabilities he has in this, at least according to the whistleblower, is Rudy Giuliani, the President's personal attorney, the whistleblower identifies Giuliani as, quote, a central figure and says U.S. officials were, "deeply concerned by what they viewed as Mr. Giuliani's circumvention of national security decision-making processes", which seems to be just factual based on what Giuliani has said publicly about going to Ukraine or reaching out to the Ukraine government.

Giuliani just did an interview with The Atlantic this afternoon. He seemed very angry, according to the reporter and he said, "It is impossible that the whistleblower is a hero and I'm not. And I will be the hero. These morons -- when this is over, I will be the hero". What do you make of all of this?

MIKE ROGERS (R), FORMER HOUSE INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

TAPPER: Look at the time.

ROGERS: Yes. No. Listen, obviously, this is a corner dog that's biting a little bit. I will say this. I mean, it is highly unusual that they released the entire whistleblower document before verification of the material therein. So if I were the President, if I were Giuliani, you know, my recommendation to them, let's say, hey listen, you don't do this way.

TAPPER: Didn't the Inspector General all verify some of the information?

ROGERS: No, he did a preliminary review. That's an investigation. So what you would do is you would take a whistleblower complaint like this and then you do a proper investigation. Because who knows? Maybe this person said they talked to five people, they only talked to one.

TAPPER: But who would do that investigation?

ROGERS: Well, normally it would be done by the I.G. and then the I.G. would have the capability to do all and access anything that they needed to do. So, I mean, that is a normal way to do it. I do think that's a little odd. And, you know, somebody who believes in due process, I'm not sure I would have done it this way.

And, you know, now the -- all the people ringing the bell of impeachment and fanning and all of that, I don't think helps the Democrats' cause, candidly, but gives them an avenue. And I wouldn't have let them have an avenue. If you believe that he really did all these things, you would have done it the proper way.

So, again, I think Giuliani is cornered. What you're seeing is somebody biting back a little bit, they get a little defensive, I think same with the President. President coming out and attacking the whistleblower versus saying, you know, taking a very different tact in this that would be, I think more stately.

I think all just serves to convince people who were opposed to the President he's guilty. People who are with the President have to scratch their head and the people in the middle are going, my God, will this ever end?

BROWNSTEIN: We should do a column of all the times he took the more stately option. That would be --

JEN PSAKI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It would be short.

TAPPER: The President said he watched Acting DNI Maguire's testimony from Air Force One. President said nice things about the whistleblower, about the Inspector General. Do you think the President liked what he saw?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: You know, probably not. You know, again, I mean, it wasn't like he was coming out to defend the President. You had Democrats treating him essentially like a hostile witness and Republicans weren't able to, even though they were very gracious and commending him for his decades of service to the country, they weren't even able to, you know, score many points for the President's side either. So I imagine he came away sort of ambivalent about his performance there.

Typically, we have seen folks who have come before Congress in this way. The idea of the audience of one, right --

TAPPER: Yes.

HENDERSON: -- testifying with the President in mind.

TAPPER: Like Lewandowski.

HENDERSON: Exactly. And this, of course, didn't happen today.

TAPPER: What do you think of the Acting DNI Maguire's testimony today?

PSAKI: You know, look, I think it's not easy thing to do. It's -- He hasn't been in the job very long. I do think that he exhibited some clear, you know, poor judgments as it relates to process that probably matters far less now because of all the information that is out there.

He said some really important things that, you know, Democrats will say in the political front are helpful for them in moving the process forward, including his validation of the whistleblower, including his validation of the need to investigate. And essentially he did his job. You know, there will be, you know, questions and criticisms about certain points but I think he did his job.

TAPPER: So, thank you all, one and all, for being here and talking about this. You, if you didn't get enough Mike Rogers on this panel, you can watch Mike Rogers, former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee on CNN this Sunday night, the return of his fantastic series "Declassified: The Untold Stories of America's Spies." That is Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. Be sure to watch it.

Coming up, did President Trump commit a crime? That's a key question. Stay with us.

[16:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: And we're back with our special edition of THE LEAD: The White House in Crisis. A whistleblower complaint is jump-starting a brand-new investigation into potential election interference by President Trump. I want to bring in two CNN legal analysts.

And Carrie, let me start with you. From what we know about the whistleblower complaint, if it's true, if it's accurate, and if the transcript of the conversation is accurate, is that a crime?

[16:50:03]

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think there's a pretty good argument that it's potentially a violation of the bribery statute. So he's a public official, the president was a public official seeking something from a foreign government official and potentially offering something in exchange, an official act in exchange.

So it's not detailed in the text of the call we have itself but there are references in the conversation to defense arrangements that were between the two countries. I think a significant area of the investigation of the House Intelligence Committees needs to be the circumstances around the withholding of the foreign aid to Ukraine and how that was connected to the President's request to the Ukrainian president regarding whether or not they would help him dig up dirt on his political opponents.

If those pieces start to marry up in addition to just his connection in the conversation itself about well, the U.S. government is very helpful to Ukraine, a general talk that he gave, and so I want you to do us a favor, that's bribery but it's also conduct prohibited by the Constitution.

I think it's a violation of his oath of office and the Constitution's require that he take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

TAPPER: And Laura, the argument from the White House and from the President's defenders is there was no explicit direct quid pro quo. It was not -- Lindsey Graham had some sort of scenario. He was asked what would a quid pro quo look like and it was something like, if you don't do this for me, then you won't get this money. Is that necessary?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, and that's not how crimes are committed. The idea of if you expressly do this, if you get dirt then I will perform the following functions for you. You can have it through circumstantial, you can have them in innuendo, you can have whatever the meeting of the minds look like to say, listen, this is what I want from you in exchange for an official act, the distribution of the congressional funds. It can be very, very, very quite clear.

And I think people hide behind this Latin term of quid pro quo to say, oh no we have to actually have that. I very rarely ever had a case and most people do not say, if then. You don't have that sort of connectivity. What you do have is a tissue around it to show the circumstance, how it is interpreted. And remember, the whistleblower complaint talks about this issue about

what was -- what was allegedly posted by the Ukrainian President's government on his Web site about what he interpreted a conversation to be. And he says, if we're essentially going to be completely helpful in corruption or helpful in an investigation, we'll have some benefits there.

Well, he's outlined to you what he interpreted from that context. Having the language quid pro quo, I mean that'd be great but it's never been necessary.

TAPPER: And very quickly if you could. Other people who might have legal exposure here, for instance, White House officials who took the transcript because it was politically damaging and put it in this classified server, if they did so because they thought it was a crime and they were trying to hide it, does that -- is that a crime? This is all hypothetical, of course.

CORDERO: Yes, that's hypothetical and I think we need more facts to determine particularly the reasons behind why White House officials were putting these conversations, these summaries of conversations into this separate secured system.

TAPPER: All right, Carrie, Laura, thank you both for your expertise as always. More breaking news, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi previewing her strategy for the impeachment inquiry. Stay with us.

[16:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Speaker of the House move to have Impeachment Inquiry without one word of evidence before she even read it. Now the evidence is out and I think she knows she owes the American public an apology.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Two very different views of what happened today. Many House Republicans are arguing that there's nothing to see here. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats say that they have seen proof of a cover-up. Let's go to CNN's Manu Raju on Capitol Hill.

And Manu, you have some brand new reporting on Speaker Pelosi's strategy when it comes to the impeachment inquiry. What is it?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, she wants to keep the focus exclusively for now on the Ukraine matter, the controversy, the handling, the aftermath. That's what she wants to narrow the focus of this Impeachment Inquiry on. And if they do move down the road of articles of impeachment, then that would essentially be what the focus of the articles of impeachment would be.

Now, for months, of course, the allegations of obstruction of justice as detailed in the Mueller report and the focus of the House Judiciary Committee, but now the House Intelligence Committee is going to look into the Ukraine matter because this falls under their purview. Now, earlier today, Nancy Pelosi detailed why she's taking this route.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): This is the focus of the moment because this is the charge. All of the other words that relates to abuse of power, ignores the (INAUDIBLE) of government -- of Congress, abuse -- contempt of Congress by him. Those things will be considered later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders just made behind closed doors with vulnerable freshmen Democrats, including many who had resisted calls for moving forward with an impeachment inquiry.

And I'm told in that closed-door meeting, Democrat after Democrat raised their own views, some had concerns, some made clear that they support the idea of keeping this a narrow investigation, not broadening it out because broadening it out could potentially lose support from some of these members, which is one reason why Pelosi wants to keep it this way, Jake, because at the end of the day, she needs 218 votes of the decide to impeach the president.

TAPPER: All right. Manu Raju on Capitol Hill, thank you so much. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter @JAKETAPPER. You can tweet the show @THELEADCNN. Our coverage on CNN continues right now. I'll be back at 11:00 p.m. Eastern with Anderson Cooper. Stay with us.